act41side

These events, this history you had me recall. What are you trying to tell me?

That the history of Tara is nothing but the continuous accumulation and recombination of ruins of the past. What you have seen, I have too. Nothing new can be found within.

What I see are not ruins, but... the source of the flames.

The flames in Na Saoirsí are indeed my sister's fire, but they are also the great sorrow behind the bloodshed, left with nowhere to go.

It was the war... no, the pain, the oppression, the things taken from them, which began long before the war. That's what lit the fire in their hearts.

My sister shaped their sorrow into hatred, which scorched the fields of Tara and drove out the Victorians.

However, without vengeance to cloak the sorrow, that same fire has come back to burn them, burning away everything they have, until they are nothing but the walking dead.

A fine summary, child. But do you really think that returning the fire would solve all the city's problems?

It's the only path before me.

True. But how do you tread it?

Come. We've seen your story. Now see mine.

(Ancient Tengae) Don't cry now. It's just a cloudbeast.

(Ancient Tengae) But I raised Greyclaw from when she was a baby...

(Ancient Tengae) They say your fire is different, Daidí. You do not heal the living, but instead bring the dead back to life...

(Ancient Tengae) They don't come back. It's just an empty shell.

(Ancient Tengae) Even if it's just an empty shell... Please, Daidí, I just want to hear Greyclaw's voice again...

And so the impulsive red dragon let his daughter's plea get the better of his judgment.

After a few months, strange things began to happen, not just to the cloudbeast, but to all the beasts of the pasture.

Burdenbeasts no longer ate grass. Cystybeasts no longer gave milk. The old refused to die, the young refused to live, and bare skeletons devoid of flesh began to roam the pastures.

As the purple fire spread through the herds, the red dragon was forced to leave the pasture with his people. He made the same mistake many times throughout his brief existence.

The purple fire spread through the herds?

What about it? Your own dear sister dared to burn <i>people</i> with that same fire. Now THAT'S crazy.

How was the fire extinguished?

You'll find out soon enough.

This is... the citadel in Na Saoirsí? That same corridor?

No. But your mistake is understandable.

We simply took a large step back in time. This is how the palace you currently stand in looked six hundred years ago.

It's incredible how stonemasons centuries hence managed to perfectly recreate it in this 'Na Saoirsí' of yours.

So what happened here?

Here... hah...

Labhréathach the fool had made too many mistakes, the likes of which you have already seen. He grew weak, and felt his end coming.

On the eve of Samhain, he came to see the brother he had not seen for twenty years, bearing the finest gifts his nomadic life would allow.

He even convinced the druids of the city, who oversaw the festival's ceremonies, to take him to his brother.

Touched by his familial love, they led him into the city. But he failed to realize when his guide's silhouette, voice, and demeanor changed, not until it was too late.

He was taken to this very corridor, and—

I doubt that Ailill, who gave the order to assassinate his brother, was on that balcony on the other side of the door. For my eyes were wide open until the very end, but I never saw his fire through the gaps.

Where did it all go wrong?

Was he angry that the priests continued to treat me as royalty? Did he consider me leaving without a word twenty years earlier a betrayal?

Or was it someone else who wanted me dead, and he simply had no choice?

I'll never know.

Within this brief, swift act of violence, there was only one thing that I had long known, that I had never doubted—

A red dragon never forgives. The hatred of the dragons is even longer than the history of Tara.

But there is more I want to tell you.

After I died, Ailill ordered my coffin dragged through the city, for all to see the end that befell me.

And so purple fire raged through every pasture I had stayed at with my clan. Life turned its back on all who touched it; only death remained.

Seven days later, the priests returned my fire to me at a clearing outside the Dark Woods. And only when the fire they returned to me was extinguished did the purple flames in the pastures begin to subside.

It was only then that the last vestige of my consciousness that remained in the flames after death faded into darkness.

All living things that touched the flames, people or beasts, were turned to ash.

Your sister spoke true. The flames will continue to spread as long as she lives.

But she is a typical red dragon. She is not so noble as to give up her life to save those who have yet to survive. If she is inviting you back, then it is certainly a trap.

Run. Call for help. Yell. Find someone who is her equal to extinguish the endlessly spreading flames. That is the only way.

But what if she has already decided that I'm the only one worthy to dance with her?

What if I can't abandon the lives in the city to their fates, as long as there is any chance of saving them?

So you'll return the fire to someone who's still alive?

Yes.

And what if that doesn't work?

Regardless, I'm going back, no matter what.

Silence, and then Loughshinny hears a sigh.

(Ancient Tengae) I suppose stubbornness and stupidity really are hereditary.